For a while now, there has been multiple users logged into the site as 'Niuniu'. Either multiple people decided to pick a unique name, and register, and all be on at the same time without posting anything, or there is a bot, or whatever.

You might have have noticed last weekend multiple users of the type blehrer* logged in similarly. I assume it is some sort of bot, but it has not succeeded in posting anything. I think Mike has beefed the subject filters up a bit.

The 'blehrer' variations posted spam comments to the front-page news stories, which I removed. Occasionally we get some bot signing up and posting comment spam -- very rarely in the forums though. It's not big enough to make any big changes at the mo, but if it becomes a regular problem I'll add captcha or something similar.

They've been breeding. Six more variants 'signed up' today and ten are logged on at the moment. According to 'who is online', all ten are 'searching the forums'. I wonder what they're looking for. The mother pod perhaps?

Well niuniu is definitely a spambot. I've done a quick google and found some other forums where there are multiple niunius registered (important distinction, there are some genuine niunius), and where there are any posts they are spam.

So I see. So all of the 10 most commented news stories are ones to which the bl**dy thing has posted comments. I notice on the front page that some stories are attributed comments that aren't there, presumably from the same source. Ho hum.